Blog Description

This is a blog for the family and friends of Collin Park. He will be serving a two year mission in the Sierra Leone Freetown Mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, he left on January 24, 2013. While Collin is on his mission his Mom will be posting pictures and letters as she gets them, the content will be straight from Collin (unless otherwise noted) - spelling and punctuation will be corrected of course! Commentary and clarification may be added by his Mom as needed.UPDATE: Collin's mission was split in half! The Sierra Leone Mission included the country of Liberia when Collin first left. As of July 1, 2013, the mission was split along the border and the new mission created: the Liberia, Monrovia Mission. Collin will never see the country of Sierra Leone. He has been in Monrovia Liberia since he left the MTC in Ghana.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Because of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Liberia and Sierra Leone Missions were evacuated on August 4, 2014 and missionaries were reassigned to different missions. Collin was reassigned to the Salt Lake City Central Mission.

Monday, February 04, 2013

This morning instead of a letter I got several emails, each containing a picture or two and a little note. (He did say there were 2 letters in the regular mail for me, I wonder how long it will take for me to get those?) This post will be all of the pictures and the notes he sent with them. He's going to Liberia!

T.I.A - This Is Africa!!!!

I will be going to Liberia on Wednesday. There are 4 or 5 of us going to Liberia and 4 or 5 of us going to Sierra Leone. Two of the missionaries here are from Sierra Leone.

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He is really there!

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Thumbs up!

With Elder Gherkins

The Lord's prison. Every building either has this or barbed wire on top of the fence or wall

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These are typical of what the buildings look like.

That's called 'hawking,' everyone walks in the middle of the road and comes up to the cars and tries to sell you stuff, a little scary at first, now it's just funny.

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This is a 10 year old boy from Ghana that shows up when they play football (yes, he said they were playing "football").I didn't do well at soccer... I played once, the heat is way too hot to play soccer, so I just sit with Elder Losee from Utah

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FRENCH FRIES!!! with no salt

I haven't had to do my own laundry just yet. They take good care of us here, but some of the africans still wash their stuff by hand. it's crazy.

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My room﻿

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Me and my comp Elder Gyuwe-Appiah

He joined the church when he was 12, he is 20 now and will be going to Sierra Leone on Wednesday.

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The Ghana Temple

I got back from the temple about an hour ago. 13 of us were already endowed. I got to go in two sessions. I was an escort for one of them. it was beautiful, tiny but beautiful! Since most of the Africans were not endowed the american companions were the escorts, it was cool. I was an escort for |Elder Smart from Sierra Leone, not my companion, since he was already endowed. It was awesome. I was in the celestrial room for like 30 minutes. The smiles on these kids are amazing.

My District

We have 23 missionaries here, 3 are sisters. We are actually the smallest group to be in the MTC. The most they have had here is in the 90's.

Elder Collin Park is serving a two year mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. He will be teaching the gospel of Jesus Christ in Sierre Leone and Liberia (West Africa) from January 2013 until January 2015.